Chapter 30 Chapter Twenty Nine

Thomas turned onto Trigant Road and stopped, his hands clasped in his pockets, sweaty from rage.The cars here are big, the houses are big, and the windows are big. He had hoped it would be a mess, one of those London places where the tone suddenly changes, like when you turn a corner from a very respectable street and suddenly find yourself in a cesspit.But this place feels quite the opposite. He's just come from a crescent of riches where huge country houses line the streets, all with metal shutters and alarms and surveillance cameras huddled up against the walls like Warning sign set for robbers.From there Thomas turned into a livable street where everything was designed and built according to human needs.

The houses on Trigant Road are large, but some are semi-detached, none have garages, and most have front gardens turned into car parks.He saw more than one buzzer on the door of a house that meant it had been turned into an apartment, with a letterbox on the door and a doorbell next to it.Public service personnel can just walk over. The people here live a warm and simple life.She lives here. Thomas already knew the area.Lars likes to take him to lunch at Fulham.On at least two occasions, Lars told the driver to go across the road.This seems like an odd route and not the way to go.Thomas remembered, because Lars had explained his order, which had never happened before.He said he wanted to miss the heavy traffic on Fulham Road and those pesky pedestrians on the King's Road.Thomas remembered looking at the yellow houses, wondering why Lars was explaining, and grinning funny as he explained.

It all seemed to make sense now that she lived here and the other Thomas - Phils - lived here. The street was empty, and Thomas plodded along, his face buried in the visor of his hat, which he had bought from a stall outside Charing Cross Station.He looked left and right, scanning the surrounding movement and approaching people, and noticed that the houses here had hidden cameras. He found number 8. A low stone wall separates it from the street.He saw an abandoned skateboard sticking out of the grass in the front garden, which made him double-check the street number: the family never allowed littering of personal belongings, neither he nor Ella.

But here it is indeed number 8.The house was semi-detached, tall, with yellow brickwork and white plaster trim, like the other houses on the street.They all look the same, like a complete unity, which feels very comfortable.The curtains of the front windows were drawn and the lining hung down in perfect uniformity.It's not something she did on her own.She still has domestic help. Thomas saw a car approaching from a block away, opened the gate hastily, walked up the stairs, and trotted to the hide of the top steps before the car drove by. A black door is fitted with stately brass fittings: a mailbox, a cat's eye and a heavy lion's head knocker.Hearing nothing from within, he raised the brass knocker and knocked twice.

There were small footsteps from inside, and the light in the cat's eyes changed. He thought she had a domestic servant, but it wasn't a maid who opened the door. She was younger than Thomas imagined, slender, with suspiciously full breasts, white jeans, a light gray sweater, brown hair pulled back high in a ponytail, no make-up.He couldn't imagine Lars with a woman who didn't look dignified or old enough, who looked like Sarah Errol, only tall and beautiful. "You are?" She didn't recognize Thomas, put her hands on her hips, and seeing that he didn't answer, she sighed and looked a little annoyed, "You, do you need my help?"

Thomas looked at the vestibule behind her, tall and grand, with a tall bookshelf reaching to the ceiling, but untidy: children's and grown-ups' coats flung haphazardly on chairs and banisters, telephones unhooked from the handset holder Instead, she lay down on the stairs as if she had just been talking to someone, and then left there and walked away.A mug, still stained with dried black tea, lay next to the telephone receiver on the stairs. Thomas couldn't believe he was in the right place.All these little blemishes were crimes in Lars' eyes, terrible crimes, acts that would lead to violent quarrels.He was a man who insisted on form and formal decorum.Thomas and Ella were never allowed to play in common rooms.Even in their own area of ​​the house, as soon as some kind of game is over, they must have the maid clean up and tidy up.If Lars was a different person here, he wanted to know this person.

He looked up the wide staircase, and suddenly, out of nowhere, he saw drops of blood splattered on white jeans, a scalp torn off, Sarah Errol falling backwards, but only details, torn Cracked skin, hair sticking to the wound.He was terrified and sick. The woman looked at him and quickly lost interest.He looked down the hall again to make sure he was in the wrong house. "Okay." She was about to close the door, but Thomas suddenly saw that the mug belonged to Chelsea, and that the bookshelf was made of knotted poplar, like the one in Lars's study at home.He stretched out his foot, put it against the door, and pushed it open.

The woman looked at his shoes, then looked into his eyes.Thomas could see she was angry, but she didn't yell. "I'm sorry," she said softly, reaching behind the door with her right hand, "what's your name?" "You called me last night," he said. She frowned.Her skin was as smooth as paper, and Thomas couldn't tell how old she was—she seemed young, but dressed older and acted like someone older. "No, my dear," she said slowly, "I think you're going through the wrong door." "But I'm Thomas Anderson." "Oh my God, Thomas!" She grabbed Thomas by the sleeve and pulled him into the hall. "I'm so sorry I didn't recognize you. You're taller than your father and handsome."

Then he saw what she was holding behind the door: a baseball bat in her hand. She put the bat back behind the door. "How did you get here? Does your mother know you're here?" Thomas stood there silently, and the corridor was plunged into darkness after the door closed.He stood motionless and listened carefully. There was no one else in the house, and the air seemed to freeze.Just the two of them. She touched her breasts and put her hands on the strange spherical breasts. "I'm Theresa." He looked past her, nodded, and murmured softly after a long moment, "Fuck, Catholic."

She leaned over and asked, "Say what?" He didn't want to say it again, so he didn't answer. "Are you asking me if I'm Roman Catholic?" She smiled tentatively, a slightly awkward smile, as if hoping it was a quip or a joke or something. He didn't answer. "Yes, I'm—Catholic, if that's your problem," she made a silly sad look, lowering her eyes, "not qualified." Thomas didn't want to look at her.He lowered his eyes, but Theresa reached out and lifted his chin like a puppy's paw.She looked at him, his eyes, mouth and nose, his body, "You look a lot like your father."

Thomas liked what she said, because he did look like Lars, and he knew he had many Lars flaws in his appearance, such as the thin corners of the mouth and bushy eyebrows. "It's really similar." She narrowed her eyes, "Maybe only a few differences..." "Aren't the children here?" "Yes." She wobbled across the hall and picked up a photograph: a boy and a girl, both with Aryan blond hair and sun-kissed skin.The boy was about Thomas's age, but taller and better looking.The boy wasn't smiling, but he looked confident, and he had every reason to be.He might be dating girls his own age, keep up with music trends, enjoy watching bands, etc. The girl was a little older than Ella, but not as pretty, nor clumsy and crazy as Ella.They stood on a stretch of white sand, with the crystal-clear blue sea behind them, their shoulders pressed together tightly, like a pair of friends. "Is this in South Africa?" "Yes," she walked away cautiously, "yes, the house..." "Oh," Thomas looked at the photo again, "I've never been there...I'm always at school." "It's beautiful, but I prefer France." "I like France too." His words sounded normal. She smiled at him, "Look, I'm sorry about last night's phone call, I must have sounded very...unfriendly." He thought about it for a while, shrugged, "It's okay, nothing." After speaking, he looked at the room carefully. "I didn't expect you to come...I thought you were at school." He hesitated for a moment, "I was called back urgently..." "because……?" "yes." She sighed. "Why would he do that, Thomas?" Thomas didn't answer.He really thinks Lars is doing it to get revenge on everyone, especially the businessmen who conspired to remove him.This is his style.Unwilling to admit defeat, he did not hesitate to use his own death to prove that he had won.But Thomas didn't think Theresa wanted to hear that. He hesitated for a long time, and Teresa interjected: "Lars just can't handle that kind of pressure anymore." This is a very kind explanation.He thought she might not see Lars very often.He puffed his cheeks and stared at her home. "Poor, poor man." She nodded, following his gaze at her house, "Thomas, I know you have been away from home for a long time, and you have been boarding at school, which has made you grow up too fast. But please tell me..." she said seriously, "are you too old to like pancakes?" It's a faux-Dutch pancake house, with wooden tables adorned with clogs and tulips, everything orange.She ordered three black coffees for herself and a treacle muffin for Thomas.She said she didn't want to eat, but if she was hungry, she would eat a small muffin.The way she watched the waiter walk up and down with the tray made him think she was hungry, just on a diet.His muffins arrived, with a picture of a windmill on the plate. The muffins were delicious, and it was long past breakfast, and he felt very hungry.He kept the visor down while he ate, and she sipped her coffee. She talks a lot.It was a long time ago at a party, she met Lars.She didn't like him at first.He was constantly correcting people and talking loudly, and she thought he was rude and rough.She was leaving and while she was waiting for a taxi his car pulled up and he offered to give her a ride and she thought she would never see him again so told him to fuck off she said she would rather walk He didn't even want to get in his car when he went home.The next day he started sending her flowers, and he persisted for a long, long time.In fact, she said, it got boring afterward.Thomas sneered, yes, it's boring!She has no place for those flowers!She lived with her sister at the time, and the house was full of withered roses.They melted onto the carpet, staining it red.She called and told him not to do this again, so that the two of them became acquainted.She felt embarrassed at the time.Before she got pregnant, she didn't even know he was married.Theresa said she really never wanted to hurt anyone.As Thomas got older, he might understand this kind of thing better. Thomas nodded, feeling like he was on the verge of tears.She lifted his chin again, letting him look at her, "You know what I mean, don't you?" He didn't answer, but he didn't move his jaw away either. "Sometimes," she said softly, "it's good to talk to people outside your circle." After she finished speaking, she put her hand on his cheek, stroked it, and let it go again.Her hand was warm and soft, and when it retracted Thomas wanted to grab it, tell her about Sarah Errol, ask himself what to do. But he didn't.Instead, he asked her how she felt knowing that Lars was married and had a child.Theresa said his baby hadn't actually been born yet, and Moira, like her, was only pregnant.She said she had to accept the fact that since she was done, she could only move forward.But, Thomas asked, aren't you mad at him for putting you in that situation?She shrugged and said that some people make you complicit, but you can't assume they did it on purpose.It's not even about you, it's who they are. Thomas had finished eating, and she had enough coffee.He paid the bill with money from his father's wallet, and saw her staring at the stack of stiff bills in her wallet as she had been staring at the pancake plates. Out of the pancake house, she took him to a furniture store she liked, and then they walked into an antique store to determine which one they liked and which one they hated. She took him to a central garden across the road to talk about gardening and smell the plants.Her parents were keen gardeners and their family had an ornamental garden that was open to the public for many years.Theresa said she was such a bad gardener that she could have killed mint.He didn't really know what it meant, but he smiled because she laughed.Everything is fine, it's like they are friends.If she had been his mother, Thomas' life might have been different. He might have been a calm, skateboarding guy with many interests and the confidence to date girls. He was beginning to think he had lost his attraction to her, and they had been together for about an hour and a half when he caught her looking at her watch behind a bonsai tree. He didn't want to be unpopular because he stayed too long, so he walked over and said that he would go back soon, could he walk home with her first.She said yes, she loved it, and it was cute for him to say that. She took his arm and they walked back together.